TBA Passes Bylaws Change for Better Geographical Representation

At its January meeting, the Tennessee Bar Association Board of Governors approved a bylaws change that adds additional seats and rezones districts. Since the 1980s when the districts were drawn, there has been a tremendous growth of the number of lawyers and concentration of lawyers in certain areas, which resulted in some districts in the association containing as few as 150 members and other districts containing as many as 2,700 members. In making these changes, the board attempted to balance the importance of having substantial geographic diversity against the need to mitigate the extreme variance in the numbers of members from board district to board district. The changes do not affect the election this year, but will be effective in 2013.